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Being behind a router is one of the best ways to protect your PC, especially if you have more then one PC hooked up to it.
A good program for under $50.00 (US/CAN) is Trend Micro I have been using this for 3 yrs and have never had any problems, (won't work with Zone Alarm though). It has POP/SMTP scanning, Spyware scanning and a real time emergancy disconnect from the internet when it detects a network virus.

I agree with the statements about Norton, any time my company purchases those stupid OEM's (Compaq's) I immediatley remove the Norton software, which is a chore.

But if you are after the free versions, then ZA or Sygate is plenty sufficient for home use.

IF you have Win Xp (with all of the updates) their firewall (not the best) should be adequate behind a router.

PC Registered user # 2,336,789,457...

"When the water reaches the upper level, follow the rats."Claude Swanson

thanks for all the input, I'll definately look for an alternative to Norton. I agree with the fact that it can be a resource hog, but i've never found anything better. I'm a security freak especially when it comes to my network. I check the logs and the router filters out a lot of stuff. My ISP gets some as well (just from tests i've run with my friends). All of my ports are stealthed (either because i forward closed ports to unused ips on my network, or because my router is set to stealth) and XP is always completely updated on all our comps. Like most of you said i dont really need to much. Just a firewall, mail filtering would be nice and an antispyware program. If it did all three that would be awesome. I'm currently using norton for firewall and AV, microsoft antispyware for spyware. I'll probably be doing 2-3 computers at once when i actually update, making free the best solution. I've looked into all of them, but i was wondering which ones took up the least amount of RAM and processing power (and especially startup time). Thnx again for all the help, i have a good idea of what i should be looking for now.

Dont think that just because you are behind a router you are safe and dont need a firewall as some have said. Routers can be by-passed in numerous ways. If someone does by-pass your router and you have no other protection whats to stop an attacker from doing what he wants??

Also, yes a router will stop the casual attacker but what stops programs on your computer from accessing other networks/internet etc?? You need a software firewall on your box, even if it is just for program control.

i wasn't saying i didnt need one, only that i dont think i need anything to hard core, only enought to do what you just talked about and maybe a little more. like i said email scanning, AV, antispyware, program monitoring. The cheeper the better but i want the best quality i can get as well. It should actually work

If you have a spare computer you can also check out smoothwall.
There are a lot of easy hacks to block websites, ports, and even set when pc's can access the net.

Right now I am using 2.0 and have port forwarding used for 2 pc's, I have iptables setup to block several ports (mostly viruses) and I have acl rules setup to block a few websites that seam to cause problems.

Best part smoothwall is free. And very reliable, My smoothwall only gets turned off when it storms other than that its on on average 2 months without shutting down.
Put a switch behind that and you have a decent secure (funny word) network.